


Daily Short Fiction Pieces

by DictionaryWrites, Johannes_Evans



Category: Original Work
Genre: Multi, One Shot Collection, Original Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:14:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25803436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johannes_Evans/pseuds/Johannes_Evans
Summary: This work is a collection of short and flash fiction pieces!
Comments: 18
Kudos: 12
Collections: Magic Beholden





	1. 09/08/2020 - Jean-Pierre Delacroix

The insurgents were held in the cellar of the old farmhouse. A great, lofty room with heavy beams over the ceilings, where once had hung all manner of drying herbs and curing meats, it now served as executioner’s cell. The three of them were kneeling, their arms bound behind them, and the general walked slowly across the room, his boots a neat, clicking step on the stone floors.

He held a feather in one hand, and when his captives saw it, saw the gold curve of its edge, the familiar, pearly whiteness of its quill, they could not hide their dismay: the general watched their eyes widen, their mouths fall open. 

They would face the firing squad come dawn. 

“Where is your little angel, now?” he asked softly, lips curving in an easy smirk. “Oú est votre sauveur ?”

The breath was a sudden, hot brush against the shell of his ear, and it turned his blood to ice.

"Je suis là," said the angel, blade in hand, and opened the general’s throat like a border. 


	2. 10/08/2020 - Desert Angel

The Fall came all at once.

Dazed and dizzy, the angel raised its head, blinking eyes under the glare of the punishingly bright sun. It had never had eyes before now, and it did not understand the pain that came from seeing with them, bowing its head and staring at the ground.

The earth beneath its quivering knees was a yellow the colour of ochre, and as it raised a dust-stained hand over its brow, shielding its eyes, it looked about itself - it stared over the tundra that spanned out in every direction, with no sign of plant, of animal, of God.

The sky was so, so blue.

Baking in the sun like the clay beneath it, the angel felt the sun sink its teeth into its skin, felt itself burn, and the pain was so extraordinary, so unlike anything that it had ever experienced in all its existence before now, that it took some time before it shakily climbed to its feet, and began to walk.

Flowers bloomed in its wake.


	3. 11/08/2020 - Werewolf In Garlic

Lying on her back in a field of blooming garlic, Calliste stared at the lightening skies over her head, where the stars had been slowly fading from view. She could not yet bring herself to move: her every joint ached, and her muscles were still untangling themselves and returning to their usual position.

The scent of the garlic, at least, was a pleasant distraction, and the plump leaves were a welcome cushion under her skin.

Tatters of her peplos were scattered around her - distantly, remembering the actions of another Calliste, separate from the Calliste she was now, she remembered being quite entranced by this fabric stained with her own scent, remembered her delight in discovering it, and so delighted had she been, she had played with it at length, and torn it quite to pieces.

In the distance, she could hear the calls and cries of morning workers in the city, hawkers selling their wares in the street, bakers announcing their first batches of bread were baked and ready for sale, and the rhythmic calls of the men working the olive press, keeping time as they turned the great wheel.

The sun crested the horizon, and its kiss was warm on her skin, which still felt uncomfortably naked, with only hair to cover it instead of fur.

Sighing, she closed her eyes, and allowed herself another half an hour before she made her way back to civilisation.


	4. 12/08/2020 - Cowboys

They stopped so that the horses could rest and drink from the creek, and made camp in the meantime. As night set in, the two of them leaned their backs against an ancient tree, long-since turned on its side and thick with moss, with a fire lit before them.

Neither one willing to slide beneath the safety of their tent, they took shelter in each other, seated with shoulder-to-shoulder, leaning their heads together. 

“Do you think we deserve this?”

“What?”

“This, Escape. Peace. Whatever’s waiting at the end - a farm, a house, life. Do you think we deserve it?”

“Who decides what we deserve?”

Pensive quiet, and then, “Everybody.”

“We’ve left everybody behind. We decide, now - so I say yes.”

It could not be said which hand reached first, but regardless, they found each other, grasped each other tightly. 

The fire burned on. 


	5. 13/08/2020 - Theophilus & Henry cuddling

Snow was falling heavily outside, and it rested in a thick shelf on the window’s ledge, coming down in thick, white flakes and slowly sinking toward the ground: inside, two vampires were still abed. 

Theophilus knew that it was no doubt freezing cold outside, and he softly groaned as he turned over, climbing on top of Henry and dropping his face to the flat of the other man’s chest, pulling the blankets over his head.

“Must we go to Agnes’ party?” came his question, softly pleading.

“No,” said Henry sleepily. “We’ll send her our regrets and stay in bed all day.”

“ _Henry_ ,” Theophilus chided him. “We can’t do that.”

“You’re quite right, we must go.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Let’s not, then.”

“ _Henry_.”

Henry turned them over, pinning Theophilus underneath him, and Theophilus hummed, but wrapped his arms and legs both around Henry’s body, pulling the other man more bodily on top of him and squeezing him tightly.

“Let’s discuss this later,” Henry suggested, laying a kiss on Theophilus’ chin. “When you find yourself more reasonable.”

Theophilus closed his eyes, sliding his fingers into Henry’s hair, and felt Henry’s warm cheek against his chest. Once upon a time, Henry had seemed so very cold to the touch - now, as cold as Theophilus ran himself, he felt so wonderfully warm. 

“I don’t even like Agnes,” Henry said.

Theophilus laughed sleepily, and squeezed Henry tighter. 


	6. 14/08/2020 - Theophilus & Henry, a kiss on the palm

Already, before his eyes, the cut on Theophilus’ finger, caught as it had been by the gutter’s sharp edge. It did hurt, certainly, but the hurt was duller than it was before Henry had guided his wrist to Theophilus’ mouth, but months ago, as if felt from a further distance.

The flesh was visibly thicker, denser, not quite so red on the inside, and scarcely a drop of blood dripped from the new cut before it began to thicken, repairing the cut before his eyes.

“You oughtn’t have tried to catch it,” Henry said, rushing from across the garden, and Theophilus glanced to the metal gutter now dropped into the dirt.

“It barely hurt me,” Theophilus said, but let Henry take his hand.

“It would have, before,” Henry said softly, turning Theophilus’ palm up to face him, and he carefully examined the flesh as it knitted itself back together, a scab forming and falling away before Theophilus’ eyes, showing his finger unscarred. Bringing Theophilus’ hand to his mouth, he brushed his lips against the palm, and Theophilus couldn’t quite suppress his soft sigh, possessed by overwhelming adoration for Henry’s warm hands against his own, for Henry’s care, for Henry’s affection.

“I shall endure,” Theophilus promised him, and Henry clucked his tongue: he kissed the tip of Theophilus’ healed finger, this time, and drew him bodily away from the guttering.

“Come,” he said. “Read with me.”

Theophilus felt himself slightly smile, and wound his hand more entirely into Henry’s own.


	7. 15/08/2020 - Pumpkin on Hillmaker's Street

There's a pumpkin carved in the wall on Hillmaker's Street.

It's not especially big, nor especially small, nor especially good.

But there's a pumpkin carved in the wall on Hillmaker's Street.

It's carved into one of the heavy, grey mason's bricks that make up the wall outside Filigree Park, and it was carved with a knife or a chisel or maybe a screwdriver: it's messy, and some of the lines are twisted and just out of place. The pumpkin is round, with its carved top, and it has a face like a Jack-O-Lantern. The pumpkin has eyes like boomerangs, drawn at a curve, and little eyebrows: its mouth is a squiggly, open mess of crumbling concrete, like the artist got too impatient.

The pumpkin carved in the wall on Hillmaker's Street has been there for a long, long time.

The children walk past it every day when they finish at school, skipping under the thick, green trees in Filigree Park, and they laugh at it, and copy its face, and trace over its messy, stony lines with their little fingers.

Mary Codstop stuck gum in one of the eyebrows once, but it was gone the next day.

The pumpkin carved in the wall on Hillmaker's Street is always, always clean.

We don't know who carved it. We don't know why. All of the other bricks have spray paint or marker or chalk – propaganda, names, declarations that Tony loves Lucy and that Jimmy likes tits – but the pumpkin has its own brick, and any writing left on its surface is gone by the next day, even though no one cleans it.

Filigree Park is a lovely place in the day time, with thick beds of flowers, chirping birds, wide bowed trees that seem to envelope you under their comfortable, green umbrellas. At night time, Filigree Park is dark, and foreboding.

You oughtn't walk in Filigree Park at night, the mothers and the fathers say, but people don't always listen.

Mary Codstop was late home one night, and she cut through Filigree Park: she stopped by the grey mason's bricks that make up the wall, and she checked her phone for a text from her father. She didn't see the flickering street lamp, or the shadows on the wall, or the shimmer of the blade in the dim light.

But when she fell, she saw the blood spatter on the mouth of the pumpkin carved in the wall on Hillmaker's Street. Mary Codstop saw it spatter in thick, red drops, and saw it drip slowly down the grey mason's brick. Mary Codstop stared, and stared, and stared, and never closed her eyes again.

And the pumpkin carved in the wall on Hillmaker's Street licked its lips, and waited.


	8. 16/08/2020 - The Shepherd

“ _Red sky at night, shepherd's delight.”_

It is late. It seems it has been late for a very long time – but then, is time stretched when one is lost? Are not all people lost, at one time or another? And when one is lost, does time pass slower, or has the warm summer sun truly been just below the horizon for hours upon hours, bathing the sky in its rosy hue?

No. Not rosy.

To be rosy is a pleasant thing, charming, calming – _la vie en rose_ is to see all things as lovely. This dusk, this strange parody of evening time, it is not at all lovely. There is something wrong, some edge to the sky that causes discomfort.

It is warm, and the lingering heat from from the day is pleasant, soaking into the bones and remaining there. Ah, so relaxing. The thought of sleep is impossible to suppress, as that lulling haze sinks over everything.

It is like the exquisite background hum that comes from a little good wine: yes, it is like intoxication.

But the sky is too red, too wrong, to sleep beneath it. It is not the dark blanket of night: it is something else, some odd purgatory that will not allow for sleeping nor waking – dreaming, perhaps. Perhaps this is all a dream. A beautiful dream soaked with red – but not a rosy red.

If that colour is not rosy, what is it instead? It is too light to be as autumn leaves, too dark to be as the soft pink of cherry blossom. The cherries themselves, perhaps, red with summer's sweet, sweet blood?

Blood. Yes, that is what that colour is akin to, decadent, inviting, with a promise of warmth – it is wrong.

It is so _very_ wrong.

The path is well-used, and yet every step under this blood-red sky feels like a disturbance, as if the countryside about is hallowed ground. A thin place, yes, where once a thousand years ago red, _**red**_ sacrifices were made.

Stop.

There is a spatter of rich liquid on the ground, sinking slowly into the dirt of the path as if to sate its thirst for wine, but this cannot be wine – it is blood.

This is so very, very wrong.

A thousand years ago? Perhaps that was wishful thinking – _la vie en rose._ How long ago had those thoughts been? The sun hovers still, below the horizon, not yet sinking down completely and letting the rural land go dark. How long is this path? How many steps have been tread on its brown flesh?

The path must be continued: there is no other. To walk the golden fields and stray from the track when every crop is bathed in the sky's blood reflection seems wrong – the path is hallowed, but those fields are truly sacred, pure.

They must not be touched.

Each footstep is heavier than the last; a sleepy haze surrounds everything now, and even the field crops of barley seem to sway to it, as if these golden ears are tipsy too. But sleep would still be wrong – the lull, at least, creates a pleasant rhythm.

A heavy step. Another. Two more. Ten more. So many steps, one after the other, rhythmic, like the beat of some tired drum. Were drums once played here, long ago? How long will it be until drums are heard again?

The sky is still so very red – it has been too long now. Does the path go on forever? Maybe. Perhaps. Possibly.

More blood on the ground. It is fresh: it has not yet had time to seep into the dry, parched earth to be tasted. Strange, how sights so simple can cause the heart to speed, the lungs to expand, the chest to feel so strained, so tight, so tight, so-

There is a shepherd.

The shepherd wears a brown cloth, over the head, hiding the hair, shrouding the body – it is the same colour as the parched, thirsty ground. There is a silent imperative – walk to the shepherd. Kneel before the shepherd. Sleep at the shepherd's feet, and be at **peace**.

Let the shepherd's thirst be sated.

But the shepherd is in one of the fields, in the centre of a sacred, sacred plot of brown earth and golden crop – every strand of barley lies flat upon the ground, as if the shepherd had come from above and landed with such tremendous, divine force that all the crop had been thrust away.

Perhaps that is what happened, but the past is the past and the shepherd was the only witness. No one will ask the shepherd if that was so – this fact is certain.

A step from the path onto grass that is yellow. It is yellow for want of hydration that water is too thin to remedy. This thought is somehow calming, although it ought not be.

Another step.

Why is the field uncontained? There are no hedges betraying its edges. Perhaps there are no edges as there are no hedges for fledglings to roost in, and with no fledglings no pledges are necessary from farmers not to disturb the hedges, or the edges of the hedges. Light-headed. Airy. It is like wine.

Perhaps the golden, blood-bathed field goes on forever.

That is not a calming thought: infinity is, by its very nature, unsettling. The shepherd is infinite: this is certain fact. Where does this knowledge come from?

The shepherd beckons.

More steps. So many steps. They are like a drumbeat – no. There _is_ a drumbeat, distant, rhythmic; every step is fitted to its loud, clear metre. The shepherd's face is visible now, for that hood has been drawn back.

The shepherd is _beautiful._ Dark skin, handsome brown eyes, such plump, _inviting_ lips. Beautiful. Divine. Those lips undoubtedly taste as good as wine, and are as intoxicating, even by sight. In one hand, the hand that is held out in a gesture to move to the floor, the shepherd holds nothing, but the other holds a thin, shining blade, light with a plain curve.

A scythe for the harvest.

Knees to the floor. Worship. Prayer.

A bowed head. Fealty. Sacrifice.

The shepherd does not move, not yet. The pause is heavy with blood and heat and warmth and the sun is still not sinking further when it ought have, when it ought be deep into the night by now – so many hours walking, walking, and now the drum is beating and it is _louder,_ pounding through the ear drums, reverberating in the chest cavity.

The shepherd's left hand raises, the hand with the blade clasped in dark fingers, and then it comes down with a whistle through the air.

Pain. Wet heat on the neck, heavy, gushing: the world goes dark.

Above those two bodies, the standing shepherd looking down with the beginning of a smile on those beautiful lips; the other slumped on the floor, still, bleeding, to the horizon, where the sun is beginning to rise, flooding the sky with sweet gold and washing the blood away.

The shepherd laughs, but then the thin place becomes a thick place again, the world becomes real: those bodies fade.

“ _Red sky at night, shepherd's delight, Red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/johannesevans), and can be found on [Tumblr](https://johannesevans.tumblr.com/) and [Medium](https://medium.com/@hannestevans) too!


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